# Donald Trump — "grab them" > [!quote] "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything." > — Donald Trump, caught on a live microphone aboard an *Access Hollywood* bus, 2005 (released October 7, 2016) ## Context Recorded in 2005 on a hot microphone as Trump, then host of *The Apprentice*, rode a bus with *Access Hollywood*'s Billy Bush before a taping. The *Washington Post* published the tape on October 7, 2016, a month before the presidential election — see [[Access Hollywood Tape]] for the disclosure and its 48-hour aftermath. Trump dismissed it as "locker-room talk"; the show's host confirmed the audio was real and that Trump "said every one of those words." ## Why this matters The highest-office receipt in this collection — a description of grabbing women's genitals without consent, framed as a privilege of celebrity, from the man who would be elected president weeks later and again in 2024. It is the point at which the [[Misogyny]] this collection traces stops being movement rhetoric and becomes the conduct of the right's leader, normalized rather than disqualifying. Its survival as a political event — damaging but not fatal — is itself a data point about how far the gender backlash had shifted what the coalition would tolerate, the same permission structure invoked in [[Nick Fuentes - your body my choice]] on election night 2024. ## Verification - **Provenance and transcript:** [Donald Trump *Access Hollywood* tape — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_tape), compiling the *Washington Post* and *New York Times* releases of October 2016. - **Retrospective:** [CNN, May 4, 2024](https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/04/politics/access-hollywood-trump-what-matters). - **Status:** Verbatim, undisputed; caught on a live mic, authenticity acknowledged by Trump and by *Access Hollywood*. ## Related quotes - [[Nick Fuentes - your body my choice]] — the 2024 election-night echo of the same dominance frame. - [[Tucker Carlson - extremely primitive]] — the contempt-for-women current in the broadcast wing. - Featured in [[Misogyny on the Right]].